Saturday, August 16, 2003
Blackout Remainders
The power is back on, the subways are running, my cable and Internet connection work. However, I still can't get my phone messages due to problems at Verizon. (Update: The Verizon voice mail was finally working when I checked just after 4 p.m. Saturday.)
Here are a few other bits about the blackout:
Paul Frankenstein directs traffic, becomes local celebrity. People brought him water, an orange vest and the cops driving by tipped their hats. His account is posted at his friend's Mike's site since Paul was sans Interent.
A restaurant somewhere in Park Slope was giving away free pizza during the blackout, according to a post on Chowhound.
E-mail from a friend of mine in California: "heard a new york grocery owner on the radio this morning, he said he lost just about all his meat and dairy...but figures he made up for it by all the beer and hard liquor he sold...right on new yorkers!"
Patrick Nielsen Hayden describes his Thursday night dinner during the blackout: "We finally found a take-out Chinese place on Flatbush that was cooking in the dark over gas--one person would cook while the other held a flashlight over his head, looking for all the world, as Teresa observed, like Mad Max Does Chinese."
My husband and I had dinner at Two Boots last night -- this time with lights. I checked their menu and confirmed that indeed the prices they were charging for BBQ during the blackout were lower than normal. Last night, one of the specials was a "blackout pizza." As we were getting ready to leave, we heard the waiter tell the people next to us that they've run out of ice for drinks - so they could no longer make margaritas. ... I'm telling you, my loyalty to that place went way up due to how they took care of their neighbors during the blackout. Very nice.
Since we had a little bit of cable TV yesterday night, I got a chance to see the BBC report on the blackout. The BBC - just like everything else I've been reading online and hearing on the radio made the blackout only about New York and not all those other cities still in the dark. What seemed weird was that the blackout seemed far more traumatic when I saw it the BBC way. Especially how they did their footage. I think it was supposed to be in the style of that Keiffer Sutherland show "24," which is a big hit in England. I've only seen the show once, so I'm not completely sure how much it mimicked the Keifer Sutherland thing - but I am pretty sure the drama is all about the 24 hours leading up to a nuclear strike on Los Angeles and they repeatedly show the clock ticking. And that's what the BBC did for its blackout coverage. Something like 24 hours in New York - with a photo montage of quickly changing pictures and a clock ticking in the middle -- starting at 24 hours. Luckily, we didn't all blow up at the end.
Friday, August 15, 2003
Good Night, New York
Apparently all of New York has power now. Time to turn out the lights and call it a night.
Top This
I'm still here. Waiting on my husband, who's in a cab on his way home.
A few minutes ago I talked to my old neighbor (who had chemo on Tuesday) and she said she's still without power. She's two blocks east of Union Square. So apparently she's one of only 600,000 still without power, according to ConEd.
And I just talked to my building's superintendent, who has a day job in Manhattan. Not only was he on a subway when the power went out, but he was on a subway near 180th Street. It took and hour and a half to get out of the subway and he had to walk home from there. He said he got home around 11 p.m.
Makes my subway story look wimpy as I was only two stops from home.
Almost Clear
The sun's getting ready to set and we still have power. Very exciting. I thought for certain we'd at least get a brown-out this afternoon. My fancy thermometer says it's 91 degrees outside, 81 degrees inside with humidity only at 37 percent. That's pretty low humidity compared to what we've had lately. Things could be worse.
Thanks so much to all the very kind people who've linked to me today, especially InstaPundit, Matt Welch at Reason and the Friends of Jeff Jarvis. Could be the most traffic I've had since I started blogging almost two years ago. So far I'm around 3,900 visits.
I'm thinking about walking back over to Two Boots for more of the great BBQ they fixed last night. I've been craving it all afternoon. It's early for dinner, but I'm tired. Didn't sleep terribly well last night, walked a lot yesterday and spent too much time in the heat. That said, my husband slept less - and far less comfortably since it was on the floor of his office. Maybe I'll see him tonight if the subways start running.
And now to change the subject only a bit. Here's a great line from Ken Layne, who apparently listens to the same nighttime white noise we use in the Langfield home: "BBC news always puts me right to sleep: those measured, calm voices of British doom. They could be talking about murders happening in my own house, right now, and I'd still nod off in 30 seconds."
Strides from Time Warner
Woo-hoo! My Roadrunner Internet connection finally works. No more dial-up today. Thanks Time Warner.
The connection kicked in shortly after the cable started working on a limited basis. Around 5 p.m. I turned the TV on (to sneakily watch a Netflix DVD) and heard a little cartoon rabbit talking. It seems we now have about 20 random channels. About five are shopping networks, Bonanza is on another station, three or four are in other languages, plus there's the Food Network, Spike TV and a New Jersey news station (which Jeff Jarvis is probably responsible for, too.)
Dog Days
They said it better than I did:
"Brooklyn freelancer and blogger Amy says her cat seems to have been rendered mute in the wake of the blackout." -- from the Blackout Blog, which I'm guessing is a Jeff Jarvis production.
By the way, Megan says her huge dog was rather out of sorts due to the blackout as well.
More Blackout Links
More good first-person blackout stuff from CamWorld, who also has some fun links. He and blogger Chris note that the Brooklyn Bridge was swaying six inches under the weight of all the people.
Here's a great group photo log of the blackout.
Well Hello: 24-Hours Later
I shouldn't complain considering the power has been on in my apartment for 11 hours and 33 minutes now. However, Verizon is claiming that it has pretty much everything under control. No mention in their press release or anywhere on their site that their voicemail service is entirely inaccessible. True, it did work a bit yesterday afternoon, but not at all since last night.
As for my Time Warner cable, I can't even access their web page to see when I might be able to use my TV again. I suppose the TV stations are covering this blackout, yes?
Cash is King
More notes from out and about in Park Slope, Brooklyn (where we've had power since 4:30 a.m.):
There are long lines out the doors at both Chase and Citibank to use their ATMs.
At one store as I was paying, the clerk thanked me for paying in cash. The credit card machine was overwhelmed, she said. I told her the wad of one dollar bills was about the only useful thing I had in my emergency kit. "Cash was king last night," she said.
The local hardware store - which was closed yesterday evening - had a huge line as well. They were out of D batteries but "probably" had the 9-volt battery I needed for my clock radio. I didn't want to wait in the line to find out though.
Overheard -- one woman said there was gunfire in her neighborhood last night and decided to stay in bed.
I dropped off some film to get developed and the guy said he had no idea when it would be ready. They never heard from their regular Kodak pickup today.
And for those of you anxious to hear how my wise old cat is handling the situation, this is for you. Little Zappa (not his real name, but it was supposed to be until he rejected it) has been surprisingly quiet about this thing. He knows something's up. He's normally a chatty cat (especially since we returned from our long trip to England) but he's barely mewed a word since I got home after my subway adventure yesterday.
Midday in Park Slope
Just got back from 7th Avenue to get provisions (um, beer and chips.) The street is packed with people and nearly every shop is open. Still no batteries for sale, though. Lots of very tired looking firemen in front of their station on Union Street. Also saw a few ambulances parked on 7th (it’s lunchtime) and their crews looked equally wiped out.
Even though the power is back on here, people are trying to conserve so no place is really very cool. And it’s definitely hot and muggy outside. Sidewalks are crowded (and people in Brooklyn don’t know how to walk in the first place.) There’s also a lot of vehicle traffic and people are making use of their horns. Also lots of sirens.
I’m going to have some lunch and then head over to the ATM to get cash in case the power goes out again this afternoon.
A few other notes … Not only was our mail delivered today, but hours earlier than usual. … I still can’t access our phone messages via Verizon. … Sprint cell phone service seems to be fine today. … All of today’s papers have sold out at the places I checked. … Still no TV. … Note for replenishment of emergency kit: A) Get more batteries and a better radio. B) Six-month old energy bars taste like crap.
Frustration Forming
I'm listening to WNYC right now. It's my local NPR station. Very weird call-in program. The host is trying to make this a happy show. She's asking for cheery anecdotes about how people are coping with the outage. But she's just now getting a wave of really angry people. They're mad at the government for letting this happen, they're blasting nuclear power and some woman just called to say she hasn't had any water in her building -- and she's not at the top level of a high rise. The host of the show totally dismissed the callers and reiterated she's looking for happy stuff. All the angry callers, as you may guess, don't yet have their power back.
Useful (or Entertaining) Blackout Links
Lyrics to South Park's "Blame Canada."
Great pictures at Gothamist.
Jeff Jarvis is blogging from New Jersey with some good links and updates.
Ed Mazza thanks Mr. Blackout for doing some household chores.
From Wall Street, Mindles Dreck points out that power is not yet back on there. More updates at Asymmetrical Information.
NYC.Gov with all the official info from City Hall.
Blackout Urban Legends (via Howard Sherman.)
Belgian correspondent asks Craigslisters for blackout stories.
Romenesko lists how news organizations handled the outage.
Blackout art at Buzznet.
Most recently updated New York pictures at Fotolog. Nice ones by Take Two and Wolfey.
The Top Ten Theories About What Caused the East Coast Power Blackout from Balkinization. (via Instapundit.)
The Illuminated Donkey is blogging from Jersey City. last night he was dictating a blog during the blackout, with key phrases such as "It's dark."
Reuters "The Big Blackout" slideshow.
Full blackout coverage pages from The New York Times, Washington Post and Yahoo!.
Manhattan User Guide's 25 Reasons to Come Back from Vacation. At No.1: "The lights are back on."
Morning Power Update
Power came on at 4:30 a.m. here in Park Slope. Things still seem to be OK, but with a few exceptions.
-- My Time Warner digital cable is out so I have no TV at all.
-- The Time Warner Roadrunner internet connection was very unstable this morning. Finally hooked up to their dial-up connection and thinks are now fine.
-- Our morning papers weren't delivered - NYT and the Wall Street Journal. (Update: The Journal did indeed arrive. I'd forgotten they've been dropping it off in the lobby lately rather than at our door. I just went out front and the WSJ was there.)
-- Can't access voice mail through Verizon. It indicates I have a message. (Probably the person who called around 2 a.m. and I couldn't get to the phone in time since I was slow to recognize the crazy Chinese ringer.)
I've just listened to Mayor Bloomberg on the radio. He says the subways will probably not be running by this evening. And the beaches will remain closed due to possible sewage contamination caused by the blackout.
One other thing -- last night I walked outside around midnight to take in the darkness. I looked up and could see stars. I got giddy. Stars, here! So I went back in to get some water and my cell phone and took my flashlight up to Prospect park. I thought there might be people hanging around there to look at the sky. I got there and it was just dark and creepy. So I walked up to Grand Army Plaza, where cops were directing traffic and giant floodlights were working. Then I realized the groups of people coming up Flatbush through the plaza were actually headed home from work. They were carrying backpacks, computer bags and things like that. Then I started thinking how lucky I was that I spent my two hours in the subway in a car that was only a mile from my house. It's entirely possible the people I saw at midnight had been in a subway 80 or 90 blocks higher up in Manhattan.
On the last car of the Q Train between DeKalb and Atlantic
4:10 p.m. The subway stops. Air conditioning goes off.
4:13 p.m. “Attention passengers, we have lost power.”
4:15 p.m. “Attention passengers, we have lost power. We have lost power.”
Female passenger (to much laughter): “And…?”
The train is pretty full. All seats are occupied and about 20 people are standing. A pregnant woman – 7 months or so – sitting in the middle of the train is being fussed over by several passengers. She is fanning herself, people offering water and asking about her health. Some guy at other end of the car starts singing “Maria” from the Sound of Music and he is persuaded to shut up.
4:30 p.m. The conductor comes back onto the PA (which is surprisingly static free) to say there has been a power outage and we are waiting for assistance. When it arrives, we will “detrain.” He doesn’t make clear if our train is the only thing without power, as most people in the car believe.
4:35 Some jerk starts smoking and people start yelling “No Smoking! No Smoking!” A few minutes later, he lights up again to the same protests. “Yo, yo, yo. I’ll smoke if I want to,” he says. Much yelling and he puts it out.
The kid sitting next to me – he’s maybe 10, sitting with his grandmother: “I’m never taking the train again.” He proceeds to argue with his grandmother who tells him that’s not practical.
4:45 p.m. Announcement tells us we’ll start evacuating soon.
4:50 p.m. A plainclothes cop comes through our car take out any pregnant women or babies. “What it is, is a blackout in the whole city,” he says, buy only loud enough for about a dozen of us to hear. He says we’ll exit toward Atlantic – meaning the front of the train – meaning we’re last.
One guy realizes the cop is taking out the pregnant women to exit first and the guy says: “I’m pregnant!” “Me too,” another guy says. “Me too,” says a woman. “It just happened. Just now.”
Our pregnant woman leaves with the cop. Later, the cop tells us there were four pregnant women on the train, including one woman who was a week past her due date.
Lot of talking among passengers. Joking around. Lots of rhetorical questions about why we can’t just exit out the rear door (which at least two passengers have tried and determined it’s locked.) People talking about getting refunds or suing the city. Jokes about the MTA and ConEdison. Among the ConEd bashing one man – who was reading the New York Times when he boarded like me at 34th Street – says something like “Who needs terrorists?” (when we have ConEd?) This is the only talk of terrorism until the cop brings it up near the end of the ordeal to tell us it’s definitely not terror-related.
4:55 p.m. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are detraining at the moment, so please be patient.”
4:57 p.m “Is there a doctor aboard?”
4:58 p.m. “Is there a doctor aboard. Or even a nurse?” (We later learn this was for the woman who was a week past her due date. But she was ultimately OK and didn’t deliver in the subway.)
4:59 p.m. New voice on the intercom: “Somebody call Johnnie Cochran.”
5 p.m. The lights go totally out. People start screaming. There is no light at all to my right. I look to the left – the back of the train – and can see a very faint red light down the tunnel. I can’t see a single face or even my own body. Pitch black. As people are screaming, I realize I’m among the people saying “shhhh” and then suddenly the power’s back on. I place my hand on my chest and my heart is racing. I’m really, really scared. The power was probably only out about 3 seconds, but it completely changes the mood, highlighting our vulnerability. A teenager sitting with her mom starts to cry and other passengers immediately try to cheer her up and make her laugh.
5 p.m. Only seconds after the lights come on. Same joker who made the Johnnie Cochran remark: “That’s when I put my hand on my knife.” Intercom goes off, then on again: “That’s when I put my hand on my knife.” People get really pissed off, yelling for him to shut up. Some think he may have turned off the lights to be funny – though we never find out why it happened. He then says “TA, your ass is in a bind.”
5:10 p.m. People in our car – the last car – stand up to exit.
5:15 p.m. Most of us have moved up one car, thinking we were about to exit. But people in the car ahead of us are now turning around and coming back to look for empty seats. We all sit down. There’s lots of room to spread out now.
5:30 p.m. Some guy says: “Thank god we at least have backup power. Can you imagine what it would be like without that?
People are joking around a lot more.
“Bottled water? I’ll give you 40 dollars.”
Guy 1: “This is not helping either – those ads.”
Guy 2: “Bud Light? Yeah”
Guy 1: (Wistfully) “So unprepared. No cooler or nothin’.”
5:35 p.m. MTA woman walks through our car and tells us that 60 percent of the train has been evacuated so far.
5:40 People start talking about the logistics of walking through the subway tunnels. “The only way a rat would attack you was if he was cornered,” a guy says very matter-of-factly.
5:45 Woman near me start talking about how she works in Manhattan and had walked over the Manhattan Bridge and then got on the subway only to take it only one stop to get to the LIRR. She was planning on catching the 4:16 train. She said that earlier she was talking to other passengers in Spanish and said that today could turn into another 9/11 if people didn’t keep their cool.
5:45 We start exiting again. We get only two more cars ahead and reach a new bottleneck. Everyone sits again.
5:50 p.m. The same plainclothes cop returns again and sits down and starts talking. I think we might be the fun car, where people aren’t freaking out. He explains that there’s a lot of water in the subway tunnel, and points to his very wet boots. He said it got up to his knees. Rancid water with piss and feces. We are unclear about whether he’s joking with us.
5:55 p.m. Lots of jokes about cannibalism and the movie “Alive.”
“I’m pretty sure we could live on a person for a week,” one guys says.
We move one more car ahead.
6 p.m. The cop says he doesn’t know much about what’s going on aboveground. However, he mentions it’s definitely not terrorism related otherwise they would be on an entirely different alert schedule.
6:03 p.m. New MTA guy comes to our car and tells us all to move up to the front car to exit.
I was scrawling the above notation in my notebook when all of a sudden there was a subway door open to my right and an MTA guy standing on the tracks telling me I could exit there or at the front. I thought I still had a few more cars up to go, so I was surprised I was really getting to exit. I crammed my notebook back in my purse and tried to size up the situation. “Is there an advantage to going here rather than there,” I asked. “No, either one,” he said very nicely and patiently. So he had me sit on the floor and slide out of the car.
It was totally fine getting down into the tunnel, but then I realized I was in this 18-inch space between the side of the train and the wall. We only had 200 yards to go to get to the Atlantic station. We could see flashlights and lots of cops and MTA people up ahead of us. We were single file, walking slowly. The guy in front of me warned me right away that if he saw a rat, he planned on jumping about 10 feet backward. But he was completely calm, pointing out to me every tricky spot on the way out. I wasn’t worried about the rats, but I got a hint of claustrophobia as I realized there was no way out of this dark narrow little passageway if the people in front of me decided to stop. (And the only other time I’ve had claustrophobia was in a narrow, poorly lit Hittite cave seven stories underground in central Turkey.)
As I got toward the front of the train, I could see people were also heading out single file on the other side of the tunnel as well. Only when I got in front of the train did I see the other exit – people were climbing down a ladder at a 45-degree angle. The ladder ended in the skanky water between the tracks and people had to get at least one foot in the water to get over to the riser on the side.
Just as a cop was telling people not to walk on the rails because it was slippery – there was a splash. A guy carrying a bag with a laptop went in. Luckily it was only his feet and he regained his balance. He made some joke about it and everyone was cool. Near the Atlantic platform, there were about three or four planks of wood placed as stepping-stones. I stepped across and two guys – passengers – reached their hands out to balance me and help me across. It was only one step and completely stable. I had open-toe but sturdy sandals. No water marks at all. I got to the edge of the platform – it must have come chest-high on me. I cop had his hand extended for me. I was in a dress and trying to figure out what to do when I saw a ladder along the wall. I got one foot up high and the cop grabbed my hand and helped me up. I may have flashed him, but it was pretty dark. And I’m sure I wasn’t the most interesting flash he got this afternoon.
6:10 p.m. I’m walking up the first flight of stairs from the Atlantic platform. Exactly two hours after the power went out.
Several staircases later, we’re near the top.
“Sunlight! Did you ever think you’d see it again,” says the guy next to me. We’re laughing and cheering.
The streets are packed. Thousands of people walking up Flatbush Avenue away from Manhattan. There are plenty of cops and MTA folks about. They’re taking care of business, but very nice, methodical and at ease. The cops are smiling.
I’m getting a signal on my Sprint phone but can’t get through to my husband at work or my parents in California. When I reach my mom, I immediately say “I’m OK.” And then she starts getting scared – “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
Nothing terrorist related, I say, just a citywide blackout and I’ve spent the past two hours on the subway. I ask her to e-mail my husband (which is the only way I could contact him the morning of Sept. 11.)
6:30p.m. I get home. I had the air on in the morning before I left for Manhattan, so the apartment is cooler than outside. I leave the windows closed and start checking for batteries and which of my radios have batteries.
6:35 I realize I’m an idiot. Both phones require electricity to operate. My clock radio is missing its 9-volt battery and I have no spare. My boombox doesn’t take batteries. One flashlight works, the big one doesn’t even when I pop in four new D batteries. About the only thing of really great use in my “emergency kit” (assembled six months ago for terrorism reasons) is a stack of cash with loads of ones and fives.) I finally remember that my Walkman in my jogging fanny pack gets radio reception.
6:40 p.m. The batteries work and I learn for the first time that the entire Northeast is screwed. The radio says sunset is at 7:56 so now is a good time to get batteries, food and candles.
6:50 I change into shorts and tennis shoes and head out with my stack of ones.
7:05 p.m. A guy walking down the street talking to no one says: “Just wait ‘til the sun goes down.” The next thing I see is in the window of the closed Barnes and Noble – a sign for an upcoming book reading: “The Beginning of Calamities.”
7:25 p.m. I walk up and down 7th Avenue trying to find batteries, a radio and a phone. I finally find a phone in a little bodega across from the shuttered hardware store. The phone is an incredibly sketchy Chinese-made model with a price tag of $9.99. The guy behind the counter is a little embarrassed to sell it to me, and tells me to bring it back tomorrow if it doesn’t work. He only charges me $9. (It worked fine.)
I walked several blocks up Seventh. Rite-Aid was closed, and customers were pissed because they had batteries but refused to let people in. Radio Shack was closed. Tarzian hardware was closed. Key Food was closed. Even Hagen-Dazs closed. But it was the mom-and-pop stores and the immigrant places that were open, being extremely accommodating, friendly and no price gouging that I saw. Almost all the pizza places were open. Lots of Thai and Chinese places were doing brisk business. Loads of people walking down the street with Mr. Softee ice creams and gelatos.
I got home to put a bag of ice in the fridge and call my mom on my fancy new phone. The sun was starting to set, so I headed out again to Two Boots pizza to pick up dinner. They had hauled a giant barbecue out front and were selling ribs, chicken, burgers and dogs. Beautiful food – and I think even lower than their usual prices. It took close to 30 minutes, but I got a half slab of ribs and potato salad to go – for $9 bucks. I was home and already smacking on the ribs -- with a Brooklyn Lager – before I realized they didn’t even have a tip jar out for the guys sweating over the BBQ making my truly outstanding dinner.
Just as I sat down to eat, the phone rang. It was my husband calling from his office at Times Square. We had each left voice mail for each other earlier, but hadn’t talked yet. His office never lost power. Their generators kicked in immediately. However, since he’s in a newsroom, we figured it’s highly unlikely he’ll get home tonight.
So I’m home alone with my cat. I’ve finished the two beers in the fridge, but I think we have several bottles of wine. More importantly, there’s a half-gallon of Breyer’s Neapolitan in the freezer that may need rescuing. Most likely, I’ll change into pajamas and so a little candlelight reading of a book I got for Christmas that I’ve been meaning to read for sometime. It’s called “Mole People: Life in the Tunnels Beneath New York City.”
(I’ve typed this up on my laptop with battery power and will post it whenever the lights come back on. It’s now 11:30 p.m. and there are still no lights on here in Park Slope.)
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Tuesday, August 12, 2003
Where the Livin' isn't Cheap and Easy
How times have changed. Check out the Economist's list of the most expensive cities in the world:
1. Tokyo
2. Oslo
3. Zurich
4. Hong Kong
5. Copenhagen
6. Paris
7. London
8. New York
9. Singapore
10. Stockholm
Prague is at No. 19 and New York is the only U.S. city in their list of the Top 28.
Tribeca Under the Radar
Had a late lunch yesterday at a great little place on West Broadway that isn't even listed on Vindigo yet. It's called Casse-Croute Tribeca, a French sandwich/quiche type place with limited seating - but the food and service are great. They do breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had lunch there a couple months ago, though it's been open since sometime this past winter. The drawback is that it's very tiny and you have to sit at tall chairs at one of two counters. And it's BYOB. 73 West Broadway, a block south of the Chambers Street subway for the 1,2,3, and 9 lines.
Monday, August 11, 2003
Anti-California Arnold-Backlash?
On Friday night I was listening to the replay of the Brian Lehrer radio show on WNYC. It was a guest host that day, though I was too sleepy to catch his name. Apparently the final topic of the call-in show was something like "California Culture: Is it an Oxymoron?" Most of the callers relied on all the cliches and talked about how New York is so much better than California, except for one woman from Northern California who said she never quite understood why New Yorkers and Northern California types devoted so much passion to hating Southern California.
Those of you who haven't spent much time in Southern California - and I'm not talking about you folks who fly out there for six months and never leave West LA except to get to Hollywood via Sunset - might not know this, but SoCal people are entirely oblivious to the fact that Northern California and New York hates them.
I grew up in Bakersfield, which is at the southern tip of Central California. If you divide the state in half, we're aligned with Southern California. We watched LA TV stations, got the Sunday LA Times and drove south to go to concerts or for vacations. Just slightly to the north of Bakersfield, the rest of the Central Valley allies with San Francisco.
That's the reason I spent my first 17 years completely unaware that Northern California hates Southern California. Then I started college. Sitting in my dorm's cafeteria one evening, one table started yelling "NoCal!" No response. Then again "NoCal!" And again. And again. Finally someone shouted back "SoCal!" Then the NoCalers let loose, finally getting their hoped-for reply - with "NoCal!NoCal!NoCal!" That was when I learned of the rivalry.
It wasn't until years later when I moved to New York that I learned New Yorkers really look down at LA. I had just figured the media people back here were too stupid to read the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News to learn the West Cost papers were breaking news all the time that the East Coast media elite would jump on days/weeks later and declare their "exclusives." I didn't know the NY papers were pretending to ignore LA with nasty intentions. Regardless, LA just always shrugged that stuff off and moved on to other things.
I've lived here nearly five years and I'm still not entirely sure why NY and NoCal has such a passionate contempt for LA, though with Northern California, I've always suspected water rights was a key. But this radio show on Friday night got me wondering about it again. I was really surprised how anxious these callers were to call up and bash on California over the election. Are they mad the attention is focused elsewhere? Does it make them question their beliefs about their own status? I just don't get it.
As for me, I'm still a Southern California girl at heart though I think New York is indeed the best city in the world. So New Yorkers, give it a rest. The recall election will be over in two months. And with any luck, Arnold will drop out of the race early and everything will be back to normal by Labor Day.
UPDATE: There is a discussion of this post on Matt Welch's site.
Sunday, August 10, 2003
No Quotes from Flushing?
The New York Times reports that not many people like the two fancy pay toilets in Herald Square and Greeley Square installed by the 34th Street Partnership at a cost of $587,000 plus $52,000 in annual maintenance. Apparently they still smell like urine and have so many moving parts prone to break down that causes the loos to remain out of service while new parts are ordered from Sweden. Despite that, the city is planning on ordering 20 more toilets later this month.
Here's the best quote in the story:
"I'm all for technology, but let's not forget the basics," said Marcus Wilson, 23, a computer programmer from Brooklyn. "I want to feel comfortable in there. For 50 cents, I expect a certain level of service."
Transit Auction
I was just checking the MTA site to see if we have subway service in my section of Park Slope this weekend (we don't - construction on both my lines) and found the transit agency has a monthly sale of "Memorabilia & Collectibles." You can buy a front destination sign ("Times Square") horns, straps and even the big hulking "storm doors" you pass through to go from car-to-car while the trains are moving.
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